


always free to run home

by dustyspines



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Thorne & Rowling
Genre: F/M, Family Angst, Grandparents & Grandchildren, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-19
Updated: 2019-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:55:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21853687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dustyspines/pseuds/dustyspines
Summary: Albus doesn't want to go back to his bedroom after the fight with his dad. So, instead, he goes to his grandparents, and Molly doesn't know how to help her grandson heal. But she will try her best.
Relationships: Albus Severus Potter & Arthur Weasley, Albus Severus Potter & Molly Weasley, Arthur Weasley/Molly Weasley
Comments: 5
Kudos: 68





	always free to run home

Molly Weasley stands in the kitchen of the Burrow, greying ginger hair pulled into a loose bun, with her fingers wrapped tightly around a mug of tea and her eyes glued firmly on the silhouette of her grandson sat in the living room. Outside, among a blanket of darkness and distinct late night fog, rain is starting to fall. The moon hangs alone in a sky where the stars are hidden by a layer of cloud and somewhere in the distance, perhaps lost among the spindly grassy expanse that surrounds her house, a sole bird cries into the dying hours of night.

Molly wonders who is lonelier: the moon, the bird, or Albus.

She drums her fingers over the circumference of her mug, the steam slowly blurring her vision as it spreads over the lenses of her glasses, and the heat burns ever so slightly when she pauses for a few seconds too long. Above her, the floorboards creak as Arthur sets up a bed in Ginny’s old room. She can hear him groan as his old bones struggle to spread out a bedsheet and tuck the edges of a duvet under the mattress. Half of her wonders why he doesn’t just cast a spell and charm the bed to make itself (she has done that many a time in past, especially when all of her red-head birds were in the nest). Then she sees Arthur’s wand and glasses on the kitchen table, and she can’t help the cheerful sigh that escapes her lips.

_Husbands_, she thinks.

Then Molly looks back at her sweet grandson, and the cheeriness disappears into thin air.

Albus hadn’t sent a letter to say he was coming over. Nor had Molly received any correspondence from any of the Potter family to explain why, on the eve of September first, the middle child would appear on her doorstep with glassy, red eyes and a backpack haphazardly filled with James Sirius Potter’s clothes.

And even now, three hours and twenty-two minutes after Albus arrived, Molly still has no answers to those questions. All she has is her maternal instinct and an assumption that _something_ must have occurred between Albus and his father.

Molly watches as Albus stares at her clock.

Since she first purchased the clock a lot more hands have been added, and a few more inscriptions on the face have been painted, too. The clock has soothed her, moved her and broken her over the course of her life. Molly can vividly remember carrying it about with her every day during the Wizarding Wars, eyes glued to the hands as they all pointed to _mortal peril_. She can remember returning after the Battle and seeing that Fred’s hand had moved to _lost_.

Lost in… wherever he was now he died.

She looks up to the sky and presses a hand to the chain around her neck. Arthur had made a necklace out of the hand with Fred’s name after a few months passed following the battle. Molly couldn’t keep it in the clock, couldn’t stand walking past and seeing _lost_ knowing he would never return, but she also couldn’t throw it away. So now she wears it around her neck.

Molly can tell without being close to the clock that Albus is staring at the hand with his father’s name on it.

She doesn’t know where Harry’s hand is pointing, but Albus’ gaze it severe and harsh and desperate. Desperate for it to move to another one. Desperate for… _something_.

“He still not eaten anything?” Arthur appears beside her.

Molly shakes her head. She looks to the side and can’t help but smile as she watches him pick up his wand and push his glasses on his face. “No. Or said anything.” She murmurs. Albus is far too engrossed in the clock to listen to their conversation, but she still doesn’t want to interrupt him and whatever is happening in his mind.

“Have you written to Gin?”

Molly shakes her head again.

“Are you going to?”

She stares at Arthur. “No,” she says. “No. I’m not.”

“Do you not think she will be worried about where her son is?” Arthur asks. “If I remember correctly, you completely destroyed our children a few days before Hogwarts once when they vanished overnight.”

“That was because they were navigating an illegal flying car over the entirety of England and could have died, Arthur,” Molly reminds with a gentle poke to his stomach. “Slightly different to being tucked up in a blanket in another family member’s house.”

Arthur smiles ever so slightly. “Point taken,” he says. “But, still…”

“Arthur, my love,” Molly says, slowly and deliberately. “Albus didn’t write to tell us he was coming. Nor did Ginny or Harry. He appeared on our doorstep with a bag full of his brother’s clothes that he clearly haphazardly packed because he couldn’t get into his own room. This was not a premeditated visit. He is here because he has nowhere else to go, for whatever reason. He does not want to be found. So we are going to make sure he isn’t.”

Arthur nods. “That… makes sense,” he says. “I’m going to make some beans on toast.”

“I’ll… try and see if I can find out what happened.” Molly sighs.

Arthur gently rubs the space between her shoulder blades and presses a kiss to her shoulder. They both stare longingly at their lost grandson in the sitting room, and Molly can’t help but wonder where it all went wrong for Albus.

Molly takes a sip from her mug and picks up the hot chocolate she made for Albus, with a drizzle of honey stirred in just how he likes it, before crossing the boundary and heading into what could very likely be a warzone.

Albus doesn’t look up or stir when Molly sits beside him and places the drinks down on the table. He just retains his expression of abject loneliness and pain as he stares at the clock with all his might. His cheeks are tacky under the lit lamps in the sitting room, and with a blanket pulled around his shoulders Albus almost looks like a ten-year-old kid again, shivering with nerves about starting at Hogwarts and drowning under the weight of his surname and his preconceived reputation.

“Your grandpa is making some beans on toast,” Molly says to break the silence. Albus doesn’t look at her. “And I stirred up a batch of hot chocolate… just how you like it. In case you’re thirsty?”

Still no response. Albus scrunches his nose and fiddles with his fingers. His jacket has been tossed on the floor in a lifeless heap and the contents of his rucksack spill out over the carpet from the force with which he flung it off his shoulders. Molly can see a sliver of gold and red on one of the jumpers, probably a part of James’ Quidditch uniform, and all she wants to know is why on Earth Albus has his brother’s clothes.

Well, she also wants to know what caused her grandson to flee from home the day before he goes back to school, but she figures that starting with the clothes will give her an inkling as to the situation. She’s been a mother for many, many years. Has probably seen the backend of every type of familial fight in the world. All she needs is a few strips of information and she’ll be able to piece everything together.

Molly watches as Albus eventually reaches for the mug of hot chocolate. His fingers shakily wrap around it, the _Coolest Slytherin Ever!_ pattern vanishing under his grip, and he holds the edge to his lips. Albus holds the mug for much too long and much too tightly and Molly _knows_ he is trying to hurt himself. She just doesn’t know why.

She reaches over and gently holds his shoulder. Albus flinches under the contact but soon settles into his grandmother’s warmth, and the tracks on his cheeks are soon replenished as a fresh wave of tears roll over his peachy skin and dampen the material of his trousers.

“Please talk to me, Al.” Molly whispers.

She looks at her clock. _Arthur – Home. Hermione – Home. Rose – Home. George – Home. Percy – Work. _

(Molly makes a mental note to send a Howler to her son for working so late.)

_Ginny – Home. Albus – The Burrow. Harry – Lost._

_Harry – Lost._

Molly reads it over and over again. Lost? _Lost?_ She fills with a sudden wash of panic at the thought of her son-in-law being stranded somewhere in the world. This is Harry Potter, for Merlin’s sake, if _he_ is lost then _everyone_ is screwed.

But then…

No, Molly thinks. That’s not possible. If something was wrong with Harry then Ginny would not be at home. She would be lost, too. Or, at least, in mortal peril. Something more dramatic.

“I don’t want to go to school tomorrow.” Albus _finally_ says. His voice is horrendously croaky as if he hasn’t spoken for years, and Molly doesn’t need to look to know he is in pain.

Molly nods slowly and with understanding. She sips from her drink and wishes Albus would do the same. “Okay,” she says. “And why is that?”

Albus blinks a couple of times. His eyes seem to sink further and further into his skull with every second that passes. He fades into a shadow of himself, only slight inklings of the sweet boy she knows and loves with all her heart showing in the colour of his cheeks and the kinks of his peculiarly scruffy hair.

“Because it is a horribly lonely place,” Albus says between sniffs and breaths. “And I think if I’m left alone right now I will go to a dark place and won’t be able to get back out again.”

And that freezes Molly to her seat. Arthur walks in at this point with two plates of beans on toast and a bowl of cheese floating behind him, and he immediately senses from the expression on Molly’s face that the conversation isn’t a pleasant one.

Arthur sits on his scruffy, barely working chair after placing a plate in front of Albus, and the two of them watch as he sparingly sprinkles some shreds of cheese over his meal. He takes a few bites, sips from his drink, and stares back pensively at the clock.

“But you have Scorpius,” Molly urges. “You aren’t alone when you have Scorpius around.”

“I feel bad talking about family things with Scorpius,” Albus shrugs. “I know he doesn’t mind, and he would rather me talk to him about it. But I just… feel so ungrateful when I talk about feeling unloved by my dad and complaining about my family when he lives in a broken home. There’s something in his eyes whenever I mention dad… like he wants so badly to help, but he’s always thinking about Astoria. I can’t make him sit through my pointless domestic problems.”

_Ah_, Molly thinks. So it is definitely a family problem. Most likely a Harry problem. Which both makes sense to Molly but simultaneously confuses her to no end.

She, like pretty much everyone in the extended Potter-Granger-Weasley family, has no idea where it went so _wrong_ with Albus. Where they all got to a forked road and everyone went one way and Albus swayed off the other side. All she knows is that at some point between Albus starting at Hogwarts to now, the day before his fourth year begins, the light in her grandson's eyes faded dramatically. And he has been floating further and further away. Like he’s in a lifeboat while everyone else sails on a yacht, and despite their best attempts none of them can pull Albus back to shore.

Harry hadn’t a single problem raising James. Or Lily. And she never noticed any problems with Albus. And Molly noticed _everything_. Noticed when one of her grandchildren had a wand under the table and was slyly charming a bowl of butter cubes to hover before going Merlin knows where. Noticed when her _wonderful_ children were trying to sneak out to play Quidditch when they were young and now they’re adults and, for some reason, seem to think curfews don’t apply to them.

But now Albus and Harry were worlds apart, and Molly doesn’t know how it happened.

“What…” Molly pauses as she considers how to word her next question. “Did you and your dad clash again?”

Albus doesn’t respond but his silence provides all the answers she needs.

Molly looks over at Arthur with a frown and his expression reciprocates the pain. Navigating delicate emotions with Albus Severus Potter is a very slippery slope, and the last thing Molly wants to do is light up an almost extinguished spark and start the cycle of sadness again. Albus came here as a last resort; she most definitely does not want to set him on fire and have him leaving their house at such a time.

Because Merlin knows where he will end up if he feels unwelcome here.

Arthur’s chair creaks as he sits up ever so slightly. “Did you get your uncles back to school present, Albus?”

Albus nods. “The love potion? Sure,” he says. “An incredible present, if I say so myself.”

The sarcasm is venomous as it drips into Albus’ words. But there is a hint of sadness that dilutes the pain ever so slightly. Molly sighs as she realises how complex a situation her family have stirred up for themselves.

“I mean… what’s better than your uncle getting you a love potion because you’re so _clearly _unlovable that you need a potion to convince anyone to care about you,” Albus says. He trips over his words a couple of times, and Molly knows they’re finally getting the full story. “And then to compound the problem, because I’m already so undesirable to my classmates, I have a father who tries to give me an old blanket before telling me he wishes I weren’t his son. So not only do I have no friends who love me, I have a father who doesn’t, too. So I mean it, wholly and truly, when I say I thank Uncle Ron for that present. Because now I know what everyone thinks of me. Albus Severus Potter, Slytherin squib and Potter family disappointment, unloved by his friends and family.”

And then there is silence. Albus still stares at the clock with anger in his eyes. His cheeks are pink and not from joy or happiness, but rather the complete opposite.

In the middle of the jarring silence Molly has time to let Albus’ words burn in her mind. She is bewildered by the amount of sadness Albus managed to weave into a few sentences, but perhaps when there is so much anguish burning a hole in someone’s heart it isn’t a difficult task to articulate it all as painfully as possible.

_A father who tries to give me an old blanket before telling me he wishes I weren’t his son._

_Wishes I weren’t his son._

Molly imagines (and deeply, deeply wishes) that there is context to that statement she is missing, and that is the only thought preventing her from Flooing straight to the Potter home to work out what is going on. She would perhaps throw a couple of hexes Harry way if she did that, though, so it’s for the best she manages to stay seated.

Molly looks at the clock and sees Harry’s hand still pointing at _lost_. Lost somewhere in the world, hopefully regretting everything he recently said to his youngest son.

“You are not unloved by your friends and family,” Molly asserts, shuffling along the sofa to sit right next to Albus. She chances a hand on Albus’ shoulder, fingertips gently curling through the hair at the nape of his neck as she did when he was younger, and he melts gradually into her touch. “I know it seems like the world is against you, but it isn’t. I promise.”

“Unloved by my dad, then.”

Molly sighs. “That’s not true.”

“Is it not?” Albus asks. “Because after what he said to me it sure feels it.”

“You and your dad have a complex relationship, love,” Molly says. “You bring out the extreme sides of each other. The highest highs and the lowest lows. But he loves you. He just isn’t the best at showing it sometimes.”

“That’s putting it mildly.”

Molly frowns. She looks helplessly over at Arthur who shares her vacant and perplexed expression. “He loves you, Albus Severus,” she asserts. “I mean, look at the clock. You’ve spent almost an hour looking at it. He’s lost. Lost looking for you, wondering where you are. Whatever happened, whatever was said and whatever he did… he clearly regrets it.”

Albus’ gaze weakens when he looks back to the clock. He swallows thickly and bites the inside of his cheek. Molly gently swats Albus’ temple to stop him from unintentionally hurting himself. “I just have a hard time believing that when he treats James and Lily so differently,” Albus murmurs. “I mean… just the way he acts around them. Talks to them. I _know_ I can be difficult but it’s not… I’m not doing it deliberately. And everytime he speaks to me I can feel the tension. Am I really that hard to talk to? Is it that difficult to have a conversation with me?”

“Of course not.” Arthur interrupts.

“With mum it’s fine. She looks at me like I’m human. She touches me without worrying that I’m going to burn her. But dad… it’s like he can’t stand the sight of me. Can’t stand having to touch me,” Albus continues. “He talks about my best friend like he is a dirty mark to be washed out a shirt. He looks at my school clothes like they’re something to burn. I just want to talk to my dad like any son can. Like how he and James talk about Quidditch. Or how he and Lily talk about gobstones tactics.”

“You’ll get there eventually, Albus,” Molly says. She feels Albus freeze under her grip. “Al…?”

Molly looks at him and follows his gaze to the clock once more.

_Harry – Home._

Not lost. Home.

“He’s given up.” Albus states with no anger. Just complete sadness.

“Al…”

“He’s given up on me and has gone to bed. He doesn’t even care where I am… he’s just… he’s sleeping even though I’m not there,” Albus says. He pushes his plate away from him and drags a coarse sleeve over his eyes and part of Molly is worried he will cut his eyelids from the force. “See? This is what I mean. If James or Lily were missing he wouldn’t stop until he’d found them. But me… he doesn’t even care enough to try for more than an hour.”

Molly doesn’t say anything. Because she knows there are no words that could ever ease the utter feeling of neglect Albus must have manifesting inside him. She thinks her skills as a parent have elevated from observing from the side-line as her grandchildren grow up. Her perspective on parenting has changed now she has to watch her own children attempt it, and all she can do is sit and watch their different tactics.

Something changes when you become a bystander to parenting and have to deal with the result; either laughing and smiling along to praise or picking up the pieces after an argument has gone too far. Molly knows that she and Arthur are the figures from which her children have based their parenting styles, and she assumes that Harry, too, reaches for them as examples from time to time. She knows how difficult it can be, but she also knows that there are situations where nothing can make it better, and nothing can make it worse.

There are helpless types of situations when the emotions cannot be tamed or controlled or altered. They have to be, and _demand _to be, felt. This is one of those moments. Molly knows Albus has to feel this anguish to grow. There is nothing she or Arthur, perhaps even Ginny and Harry, too, can say to make a slight difference.

So she just pulls Albus to her side and peppers kisses over the top of his head. His hair smells of apples – freshly washed in preparation for the first day of school – and Molly wants to hold him forever. And ever and ever and ever. And never let go.

Because this world is an exceptionally cruel place. And she doesn’t know what Albus has done to warrant such a harsh roll of the dice.

_Nothing_, she thinks. He has done nothing wrong. He has been flung into the most complex of situations and has been abandoned with a lifetime of expectation and legacy that he never asked for. Albus has been unlucky enough to have been born to two of the most wonderful people in the world, and to live with the burden of very heavy names.

Albus.

Severus.

_Potter_.

Molly can’t imagine carrying a name with that much weight. The reputation of two of the most respected, despised and famous wizards in the world and the legacy of the boy who changed everything. Albus has the potential to meet and excel beyond the expectations placed upon him. But nobody has taught him how to do so.

And now he is lost.

“I think we should call it a night,” Molly eventually says. “We’ll have to get you back home tomorrow so you can head to the Platform on time. Staying up all night worrying over the situation will only make things worse.”

Albus nods. “Do you need help cleaning up?” He says, already piling plates and bowls and mugs in his hands.

“No, no. Don’t be silly,” Molly says. With a careful flick of her wand she sends the plates into the kitchen of their own accord, and she sees a momentary flicker of wonder and _joy_ in Albus’ eyes as he relishes the casual use of magic. “Just get yourself to bed, okay? No dawdling.”

Albus smiles. It doesn’t quite reach his eyes this time but she thinks he’s getting there. “Okay, okay. No need to give me your stern grandma voice,” he says. As they stand up they embrace, and Albus holds her a little tighter for a little longer. “I love you. I’m sorry for barging in this evening.”

“You didn’t barge in,” Arthur says as he joins the hug. One hand holds Albus’ head and the other Molly’s waist, and for a moment it is the three of them against the world. “You could never barge in.”

“He’s right.” Molly asserts.

Albus summons his bag when they let go of each other, crouching down to pick up a jumper that had fallen out mid-flight. He drapes James’ Quidditch jumper over his arm and hugs it close to his chest, and Molly truly wants more details about the evening’s events. Perhaps, if Albus has James’ clothes, at least one of the Potter’s knows where Albus is.

“Up you go.” Arthur says.

Albus nods. “I love you. See you in the morning.” He says, scampering off to the staircase. They listen as he ascends, tripping on a step at some point, before dropping his bag to the floor and settling down on the bed. The mattress creaks and his sigh faintly drifts back down the stairs into the living room, and though he has left, his soul and his light still lingers.

His light and his sadness.

That awful, _awful_ sadness.

The two of them set to cleaning up the living room. Molly wipes up crumbs and spillages of tea and hot chocolate while Arthur folds the blankets and locks the front door. The silence between them is fragile and Molly knows they are both wandering with words burning the tips of their tongues. They just don’t know how to articulate their thoughts.

It is only when they stand in the kitchen, Molly swilling a glass full of water, Arthur putting away the clean dishes and Albus quietly snoring above them, that they manage to shatter the silence and speak again.

“He’ll be okay, won’t he?” Molly asks.

Arthur looks to her. “Of course he will,” he says. “Our Albus is a strong one.”

“I just… can’t even begin to think about what happened for Harry to say that to him,” Molly says. “Harry. _Our_ Harry.”

“You know as well at the rest of us that they’re both emotional,” Arthur assures. “If Albus inherited anything from his father, it was his emotions. They’re both explosive, but loving, and intense. When two people with that emotional range meet under stressful circumstances things will be said that they don’t mean.”

“He wouldn’t mean it, I know. But I’m just trying to work out what he actually meant, I guess,” Molly shrugs. “He would never wish that Albus didn’t exist, or that he wasn’t Al’s father…”

“Exactly,” Arthur says, finally turning to Molly after putting the last plate away. “There is something that has been lost in translation along the way. There is no point us dwelling on it when we don’t know what has happened. Anyway, you and I both know that Ginny will deal with Harry better than anyone else can.”

Molly laughs. “We raised some tremendously fierce children, didn’t we?”

“Indeed,” Arthur says with a kiss to Molly’s lips. “And our children are doing the same.”

“Albus is fierce,” Molly agrees. “He loves fiercely. And he _feels_ fiercely, too.”

“And that makes him a spectacularly wonderful grandson.”

“I love him so much, Arthur.” Molly sighs.

Arthur kisses her temple. “So do I,” he murmurs. “He will be fine. He’ll be back with Scorpius tomorrow, and this whole thing will blow over.”

“Being back at Hogwarts will be good for him, I think. Around his siblings and cousins. With Scorpius,” Molly says. “There’s nowhere at Hogwarts for him to get into trouble or, you know, get into vulnerable situations.”

“Exactly,” Arthur smiles. “Now, bed?”

Molly nods. She gives one final look around the kitchen, eyes landing on a school photo of Albus in his robes before his first day at Hogwarts. She wishes with all her might for Albus to gain that warmth and youthfulness again. She wants to see the life in his eyes. The light in his soul.

She wants to see her Albus again.

Molly switches off the light and follows Arthur up the stairs, silently hoping that tomorrow will be the day where everything gets resolved. Where her family fall back into equilibrium and Albus feels loved once more. It’s all she wants.

And she prays she finally gets it.

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr: dustyspines


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